Jazz saxophonist Boney James will perform Friday at Troy Music Hall

So says jazz saxophonist Boney James on the state of the recording industry today, as the three-time Grammy winner tours the country to promote his latest recording, a genre-blending work called “The Beat” — a marriage of his own R&B roots with a Latin backbeat.

That tour will set down in the Capital Region Friday night for a performance at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. “Never been to Troy. I’ve played in Albany before, but it’s been at least five years since then,” he says.

“It’s been so crazy in the last 10 years,” he says of the recording industry, noting its slump along with the economy a half a dozen years back. “But in the last year or two, it’s sort of reached a plateau and interest in music seems to be picking up again,” he says. “I’m not sure if it’s because the economy is picking up again, or people being able to connect again with it.”

Not that he’s had much to complain about personally. “The Beat” launched last spring and debuted at the top of the Billboard contemporary jazz album chart, staying there for nearly two months, his 10th recording to top that ranking. And to top that — and underscore its crossover appeal — it was also named a Soul Train Award nominee.

“ ‘The Beat’ has been very successful, and there’s been noticeably more excitement for us on tour,” James says. “I was really proud of the recording when it was done, as proud as I’ve been of anything I’ve done. It’s kind of a Latin-R&B mash-up. I started out kind of trying to do a pure Latin thing but as I was working on it I started drifting back toward my R&B roots.”

Those roots are deep. An East Coast native — Lowell, Mass., by way of New York’s Westchester County — whose family moved to Los Angeles when he was 14, James picked up the clarinet at age 8 and later switched to sax. His professional career began after completing a degree at UCLA. Before launching his solo career, “My first real professional gig was as a sideman with Morris Day, playing piano and sax,” he recalls. “Then I got gigs with the Isley Brothers, Teena Marie and others. That’s pretty much the school I came up in.”

Since he went solo in 1992, James has moved more than 3 million copies of his recordings, and it has often heavily referenced his R&B background. Indeed, though Billboard tabbed him one of the top three jazz artists of the first decade of this century, he often downplays the notion that he is a jazz performer.

“People are often surprised seeing my show, that it’s so high energy,” he says. “People have a misconception about what a jazz show can be.” And his muscular playing has earned him Soul Train honors, as well as an NAACP Image Award nom, in the jazz album category.

The road is his focus through next spring, with shows booked through next May. And he has no immediate plans for a new recording anytime soon. “Usually when I turn in a recording, there’s a kind of fallow period after that,” he says. “But with ‘The Beat’ out there for six months, it might be time to start thinking about another. I just don’t want to start too soon.” Better to enjoy an uptick of excitement in music again and be where he is.